A Piece of Kellar & Houdini History

Norm Nielsen and Harry Kellar

The image above is a wonderful 8 sheet Kellar poster, now in the collection of Norm Nielsen. According to Lupe Nielsen, it may be the only 8 sheet Kellar poster of this image known to have survived. The incredible poster has quiet a story.

Apparently, this poster was a gift from Harry Kellar to Harry Houdini. The poster hung in the home of Houdini, 278 W 113th St NYC. The poster was originally mounted on linen and actually stayed in the house longer than Houdini.  In the 1980s, Dixie Dooley was in NYC and stopped by the old Houdini House. Unlike most visitors, he actually got permission to enter the home and was able to tour Houdini's old home. While on the tour, the owner showed Dixie a table full of posters and gave them to him as a gift. The above poster was among those he acquired and remained in his possession until he sold the large Kellar poster to Norm Nielsen in the 1990s.

According to Lupe, "no restorers wanted to touch it." So they placed it into a giant frame protected by a piece of Plexiglas in the front. It is now in the Nielsen Magic Poster Collection.  The poster was printed by Strobridge Litho, Cincinnati 1894.

*The photo credit belongs to Lee Alex (www.leealexmagic.com) who graciously gave me permission to reproduce it here. I also received permission from Lupe Nielsen to include it, as it is part of the private Nielsen Magic Poster Collection (www.nnmagic.com) By the way, Dixie Dooley talks about this poster in his book Exploits and also in Houdini Question Reality, two books he wrote available on Lulu.com.

All Things Magic Edit-a-thon for MagicPedia

On September 14th, 2013, MagicPedia will be hosting an event called 'All Things Magic' Edit-A-Thon 2013. It's basically a one day event where people from all over the globe can get together 'virtually' and help to update, add and edit content for the MagicPedia Wiki page.

A little known fact is that yours truly, the Magic Detective, quietly has added content to MagicPedia. And I'm not the only one by any stretch. If you are interested in helping, all you need is a computer of some kind and an internet connection. Some areas are having actual events at specified locations so you can check the link below for more information.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/All_Things_Magic_Edit-a-thon_2013

News on Magic Detective Youtube Show Return

Sorry if it appears that I've been absent from the blog. I assure you, it's been on my mind even though I've not been able to attend to it as I would have liked this summer. It's been an extremely busy summer with shows, so I've been traveling and performing a lot.

But there is news. I'm working on new episodes of The Magic Detective Youtube Show and I'm very excited about some of the things in store. One of the new features I'm working on right now, is combing through old magic books and finding rarely seen magic routines, basically things that have been forgotten by our modern generation and then actually performing them.

The first routine will be from the book, The Modern Conjurer by C.Lang Neil and it's really unusual and rather brilliant. I'm not going to say WHAT routine it is, you'll have to wait till the episode appears.

I'm also hoping to visit some magicians graves in upcoming episodes and also stop by and see some magic collections! But I've got to finish my Summer run first and I still have 40+ shows yet before the month is over. Rest assured it will be returning!!!